“Did she just say this album is bad?” I hear Dex ask Darcy.
Darcy says yeah and a few seconds later “Thunder Road” is blaring. Darcy shouts at him to turn it down. I smile.
“So?” Darcy asks. “Are you going to tell us or not?”
“Not.”
“If I promise not to tell Dex?”
“Still not.”
Darcy makes an exasperated sound. Then she tells me that she will find out one way or another and hangs up.
The next I hear from Dex is on Thursday night, the day before we are scheduled to leave for the Hamptons.
“Do you want a ride? We have room for one more,” he says. “Claire’s coming with us. And your boyfriend’s in.”
“Well, in that case, I’d love a ride,” I say, trying to sound breezy and casual. I need to show him that I’ve moved on. I have moved on.
At five o’clock the next day, we are assembled in Dexter’s car, hoping to get ahead of the traffic. But the roads are already clogged. It takes us an hour to get through the Midtown Tunnel and nearly four hours to make the 110-mile drive to East Hampton. I sit in the backseat between Claire and Marcus. Darcy is in a giddy, hyper mood. She spends most of the car ride facing the three of us in the backseat, raising various topics, asking questions, and generally carrying the conversation. She makes things feel celebratory; her good moods are as infectious as her bad ones are contaminating. Marcus is the second most talkative in our group. For a thirty-mile stretch, he and Darcy are a running comedy routine, making fun of each other. She calls him lazy, he calls her high maintenance. Claire and I chime in occasionally. Dex says virtually nothing. He is so quiet that at one point Darcy yells at him to stop being such a bore.
“I’m driving,” he says. “I need to concentrate.”
Then he looks at me in the rearview mirror. I wonder what he’s thinking. His eyes give nothing away.
It is getting dark when we stop for snacks and beers at a gas station on Route 27. Claire sidles up to me in front of the chips, loops her arm through mine, and says, “I can tell he really likes you.” For a second I am startled, thinking that she means Dex. Then I realize she is talking about Marcus.
“Marcus and I are just friends,” I say, selecting a can of Pringles Light.
“Oh, c’mon now. Darcy told me about your date,” she says.
Claire is always in the know about everything—the latest trend, the hot new bar opening, the next big party. She has her manicured fingers on the pulse of the city. And knowing the details of Manhattan’s singles is part of her bag too.
“It was just one date,” I say, happy that Darcy has not determined what happened with Marcus, despite a barrage of questioning. She even probed him with an e-mail; he forwarded me the message with his subject line reading “Nosy bastards.”
“Well, the summer is long,” Claire says wisely. “You’re smart not to commit until you see what else is out there.”
We arrive at our summer house, a small cottage with limited charm. Claire found it when she came out alone in mid-February, disgusted with all of us for not sacrificing a free weekend to house-hunt. She organized everything, including setting up the other half of the share. As we tour the house, she apologizes again for the lack of a pool, and laments that the common areas aren’t really large enough for good parties. We reassure her that the big backyard with a grill makes up for that. Plus, we are close enough to the beach to walk, which, in my opinion, is the most important thing about a summerhouse.
We unpack the car and find our bedrooms. Darcy and Dex have the room with the king-sized bed. Marcus has his own room, which could come in handy. And Claire has her own room—a reward for her efforts. I am rooming with Hillary, who blew off work today and took the train in last night. Hillary is always blowing off work. I don’t know anyone more laid-back about work, particularly at a big firm. She comes to work late every day—closer and closer to eleven with each passing year—and she refuses to play the games that other associates play, like leaving a jacket on the back of their chair or a cup full of coffee on their desk before leaving at night so that partners will think they’ve only left for a short break. She billed fewer than two thousand hours last year and therefore received no bonus. “Do the math and you’ll realize that making a bonus comes out to less per hour than flipping burgers at McDonald’s,” she said this year on the day checks were handed out.
I call her on my cell now. “Where are you?”
“Cyril’s,” she shouts over the crowd. “Want me to stay here or meet you guys somewhere?”
I pass along the question to Darcy and Claire.
“Tell her we’re going straight to the Talkhouse,” Darcy says. “It’s already late.”
Then, as I expected, Claire and Darcy insist on changing their clothes. And Marcus, who is still wearing his work clothes, goes to change too. So Dex and I sit in the den, opposite each other, waiting. He holds the remote control but does not turn the TV on. It is the first time we have been alone since the Incident. I am conscious of sweat accumulating under my arms. Why am I nervous? What happened is behind us. It is over. I must relax, act normal.
“Aren’t you going to doll up for your boyfriend?” Dex asks quietly, without looking at me.
“Very funny.” Even the mere exchange of words now feels illicit.
“Well, aren’t you?”
“I’m fine in this,” I say, glancing down at my favorite jeans and black knit top. What he doesn’t know is that I already put much thought into this outfit when I changed after work.
“So you and Marcus make a swell couple.” He glances furtively at the staircase.
“Thanks. So do you and Darcy.”
We exchange a lingering look, too loaded with potential meaning to begin to interpret. And then, before he can respond, Darcy bounds down the stairs in a curve-hugging chartreuse sheath. She hands Dex a pair of scissors and crouches at his feet, lifting her hair. “Can you cut the tag, please?”
He snips. She stands and spins.
“Well? How do I look?”
“Nice,” he says, and then glances at me sheepishly as if the one-word compliment to his fiancée might somehow upset me.
“You look awesome,” I say, to show him that it doesn’t. Not in the least.
We pay the cover and make our way through the massive crowd at Stephen’s Talkhouse, our favorite bar in Amagansett, saying hello to all of the people we know from various circles back in the city. We find Hillary at the bar with a Budweiser, wearing cutoff jeans, a white scoop-neck T-shirt, and the kind of plain blue flip-flops that Darcy and Claire would only wear to their pedicurist. There is not a pretentious bone in Hillary’s body, and as always, I am so happy to see her.
“Hey, guys!” she yells. “What took you so long?”
“Traffic was a bitch,” Dex says. “And then certain people had to get ready.”
“Well, of course we had to get ready!” Darcy says, looking down to admire her outfit.
Hillary insists that we need a kick start to our evening and orders a round of shots. She hands them out as we stand in a tight circle, ready to drink together.
“To the best summer ever!” Darcy says, tossing her long, coconut-scented hair behind her shoulders. She says it at the start of every summer. She always has wildly high expectations that I never share. But maybe this summer she will be right.
We all throw back our shots, which taste like straight vodka. Then Dex buys another round, and when he hands me my beer, his fingers graze mine. I wonder if he does it on purpose.
“Thank you,” I say.
“Anytime,” he murmurs, holding my gaze as he did in the car.
I count to three silently and then look away.
As the night wears on, I find myself watching Dex and Darcy interact. I am surprised by the territorial pangs I feel as I observe them together. It is not exactly jealousy, but something related to it. I notice little things that didn’t use to register. Like once, she slipped her four
fingers into the back of his jeans right at the top. And another time, when he was standing behind her, he gathered all of her hair in one hand and sort of held it up in a makeshift ponytail before dropping it back at her shoulders.
Right now, he leans in to say something to her. She nods and smiles. I imagine that his words were “I want you tonight” or something along those lines. I wonder if they have had sex since he and I were together. Surely, yes. And that bothers me in some weird way. Maybe that happens whenever you watch someone on your List with someone else. I tell myself that I have no right to be jealous. That I had no business adding him to my List in the first place.
I try to focus on Marcus. I stand near him, talk to him, laugh at his jokes. When he asks me to dance, I say yes without hesitation. I follow him onto the crowded dance floor. We work up a good sweat, dancing and laughing. I realize that although there is no great chemistry, I am having fun. And who knows? Maybe this will lead to something.
“They’re dying to know what happened on our date,” Marcus says into my ear.
“Why do you say that?” I ask.
“Darcy inquired again.”
“She did?”
“Yup.”
“When?”
“Tonight. Right after we got here.”
I hesitate and then ask, “Did Dex say anything?”
“No, but he was standing right next to her looking pretty darn interested.”
“Some nerve,” I say playfully.
“I know, the nosy bastards…And don’t look now, but they’re staring at us.” His face touches mine, his whiskers scratching my cheek.
I drape my arms over his shoulders and move my body flush against his. “Well then,” I say. “Let’s give them something to look at.”
Seven
“So what’s the deal with you and Marcus?” Hillary asks me the next morning as she picks through the pile of clothes that have already accumulated beside her bed. I resist the urge to fold them for her.
“No deal, really.” I get out of bed and promptly start to make it.
“Potential?” She pulls on a pair of sweats and ties the drawstring, cinching them at hip level.
“Maybe.”
Last year Hillary broke up with Corey, her boyfriend of four years, a nice, smart, all-around great guy. But Hillary was convinced that as good as the relationship was, it wasn’t good enough. “He’s not the One,” she kept saying. I remember Darcy informing her that she might revise that opinion in her mid-thirties, a statement Hillary and I both rehashed at length later. A classic, tactless Darcyism. Yet, as time passes, I can’t help wondering if Hillary made a mistake. Here she is, one year later, embroiled in the fruitless blind-dating scene while, rumor has it, her ex has moved into a Tribeca loft with a twenty-three-year-old med student who is a dead ringer for Cameron Diaz. Hillary claims that it doesn’t bother her. I find that very hard to believe, even for someone with her moxie. In any case, she doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to find a Corey replacement.
“Summer potential or long-term potential?” she asks me, running her hands through her short, sandy hair.
“I don’t know. Maybe long-term potential.”
“Well, you looked like a total couple last night,” she says. “Out there dancing.”
“We did?” I ask, thinking that if we looked like a couple, Dex must know that I’m not dwelling on him.
She nods, finds her “Corporate Challenge” T-shirt, and sniffs the armpits before tossing it over to me. “Is this clean? Smell it.”
“I’m not gonna smell your shirt,” I say, throwing it back. “You’re gross.”
She laughs and puts on her obviously clean enough shirt. “Yeah…You two were out there whispering and laughing. I thought for sure you were going to hook up last night, and that I would get the room to myself.”
I laugh. “Sorry to disappoint.”
“You disappointed him more.”
“Nah. He just said good night when we got home. Not even a kiss.”
Hillary knows about the first kiss. “Why not?”
“I don’t know. I think we’re both proceeding with caution. We’ll have a lot of contact between now and September…You know, he’s in the wedding party too. If things blow up, it could be bad.”
She looks as if she is considering my point. For one second I am tempted to tell Hillary everything about Dex. I trust her. But I don’t share, reasoning that I can always tell her, but I can’t untell her and erase the knowledge from her mind. When we are all together, I would feel even more awkward, constantly thinking that she’s thinking about it. And anyway…it is over. There is really nothing to talk about.
We go downstairs. Our housemates have already assembled around the kitchen table.
“It’s kick-ass outside,” Darcy says, standing, stretching, and showing off her flat stomach under a cropped T-shirt. She sits back down at the table, returning to her game of solitaire.
Claire looks up from her Palm Pilot. “Perfect beach weather.”
“Perfect golf weather,” Hillary says, looking at Dex and Marcus. “Any interest?”
“Um, maybe,” Dex says, glancing up from the sports page. “Want me to call and see if we can get a tee time?”
Darcy slams her cards onto the table and looks around defiantly.
Hillary doesn’t seem to notice Darcy’s objection to a round of golf because she says, “Or we could just pop over to the driving range.”
“No! No! No! No golf!” Darcy pounds the table again, this time with her fist. “Not on our first day! We have to stay together! All of us. Right, Rachel?”
“Guess that means no golf today,” Dex says, before I am forced to become involved in the great golf debate. “Darcy’s orders.”
Hillary gets up from the table with a disgusted look on her face.
“I just want us all to be together at the beach,” Darcy says, putting a benevolent spin on her selfishness.
“And you make the prospect seem so pleasant.” Dex stands, walks over to the sink, and starts making coffee.
“What’s your problem, grouchy bottom?” Darcy says to his back as if he is the one who just told her how to spend the day. “You are being such an old stinkweed. Sheesh.”
“What’s a stinkweed?” Marcus asks, scratching his ear. It is his first contribution to the morning conversation. He still looks half asleep. “I’m not familiar.”
“Just have a look at one right now,” Darcy says, pointing at Dex. “He’s been in a bad mood since we got here.”
“No, I haven’t,” Dex says. I want him to turn around so I can read his expression.
“Have too. Hasn’t he?” Darcy demands an answer from the rest of us, looking at me specifically. Being friends with Darcy has taught me the art of smoothing over. But sleeping with her fiancé has dulled my instinct. I am not in the mood to chime in. And nobody else wants to become embroiled in what should be their private argument. We all shrug or look away.
In truth, though, Dex has been somewhat subdued. I wonder if I have anything to do with his mood. Maybe it bothered him, watching me with Marcus. Not full-blown jealousy, just the territorial pangs that I experienced. Or perhaps he’s only thinking about Darcy, seeing her for the controlling person she is. I’ve always been aware of Darcy’s demands—you can’t miss them—but lately, I have been less tolerant of her. I am tired of her always getting her way. Maybe Dex feels the same.
“What are we doing for breakfast?” Marcus asks through a loud yawn.
Claire glances at her diamond-studded Cartier. “You mean brunch.”
“Whatever. For food,” Marcus says.
We discuss our options and decide to skip the crowded East Hampton scene. Hillary says that she bought the essentials the day before.
“By essentials, do you mean Pop-Tarts?” Marcus asks.
“Here.” Hillary sets bowls, spoons, and a box of Rice Krispies on the table. “Enjoy.”
Marcus opens the box and pours some into his bowl. He
looks across the table at me. “Want some?”
I nod, and he prepares my bowl. He doesn’t ask anyone else if they want cereal, just pushes the box down the table.
“Banana?” he asks me.
“Yes, please.”
He peels the banana and slices it into his bowl and mine, alternating every few slices. He takes the bruised section for himself. We are sharing a banana. This means something. Dex’s eyes dart my way as Marcus flicks the last neat cylinder into my bowl, leaving the nasty end piece in its peel where it belongs.
Several hours later, we are finally ready to go to the beach. Claire and Darcy emerge from their rooms with their stylish canvas bags filled to the brim with plush new beach towels, magazines, lotions, thermoses, cell phones, and makeup. Hillary carries only a small bath towel from the house and a Frisbee. I am somewhere in between with a beach towel, my Discman, and a bottle of water. The six of us walk in a row, our flip-flops smacking the pavement with that satisfying sound of summer. Claire and Hillary walk on either end, flanking the house couple and the possible couple-to-be. We cross the beach parking lot and climb over the dune, hesitating for a second to take in our first collective glimpse of the ocean. I am glad that I no longer live in landlocked Indiana, where people call Lake Michigan “the beach.” The view is thrilling. It almost makes me forget that I slept with Dex.
Dex leads the way down the crowded beach, finding us a spot halfway between the dunes and the ocean where the sand is still soft but even enough to spread our towels. Marcus puts his towel next to mine; Darcy is on my other side, Dex next to her. Hillary and Claire set up in front of us. The sun is bright but not too hot. Claire warns us all about the UV rays, that these are the days when you really have to be careful. “You can get severe sun damage and not even realize it until it’s too late,” she says.
Marcus offers to put suntan lotion on my back.
“No, thanks,” I say. But as I struggle to reach the middle of my back, he takes the bottle from me and applies the lotion, meticulously maneuvering around the edges of my suit.